Tristan Murail: Territoires de l'oubli | Mirela Zhulali

Описание: Tristan Murail: Territoires de l'oubli (1977)
Piano : Mirela Zhulali
Audio: Georg Niehusmann
Photo: Oksana Kovaliuk

Nowdays, the piano is usually classified among the percussion instruments, probably because contemporary composers have strongly desired to destroy the powerful romantic and impressionistic image of the instruments.

Instead of considering the piano as a mere percussion instrument (hammers hitting strings) "Territoires de l'oubli" emphasises a different idiomatic characteristic of the instrument: a group of strings whose vibration is caused by sympathetic resonance or by direct action of the hammers.

This is why the sustain pedal is depressed from the beginning until the very end of the piece : the work is written for the resonances and not for the attacks, which are considered as an inevitable but secondary phenomenon, as scars of the continuum.
The resulting harmonic aggregates are chosen according to the natural resonances of the piano, which they reinforce or contradict according to the direction of the evolution as a given moment of the work (towards greater simplicity, or greater complexity. In terms of tempo or of the repeated patterns, there are times when a certain genre of freedom gives the pianist the possibility of reacting to the specific resonance phenomena of the piano he is playing.

The rhythms have 'sinusoid' forms (accel. - rall.-accel...) constantly disorganising and reorganising themselves, with a special attraction for the "heart-beat" rhythm ; meanwhile the tempo is totally unstable.

Echo effects are used throughout the score. Therefore, the pianist will very often have to control the intensity of many superposed layers as well as the independent evoulution of dynamics, timbre and tempo.

The piece is dedicated to Michaël Levinas who premiered the work in Rome (Academia Filarmonica) on May 22 1978 and who has performed it many other times since.